The “We the People” petition was submitted nine days after the elementary school shooting last year in Newtown, Conn. It called for the elimination of armed guards that protect the president and vice president and the establishment of "Gun Free Zones" around them — a reference to a federal law that bans firearms on school grounds.

The petition garnered more than 40,000 signatures, enough to trigger an automatic response from the White House.

The White House dismissed the call to disarm the president's security detail, noting that Congress mandated full-time protection of the president after the third assassination of a sitting president in 1901. . . .